Customer Reviews

"Love and Theft"

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1 star:		(15)

 

 

A few months ago the music press dusted down their Bob Dylan obituaries, changed everything from the past to the present tense, and called it a celebration of Dylan's sixtieth birthday. Typically, Dylan took no public part in the celebrations.

"I blew out some candles, ate some cake, and went to bed," he told the Times.

He managed a little more too, spending a couple of weeks in a New York studio in mid-May, on a break from his ongoing touring.

With Dylan at the production desk the album was quickly recorded and mixed.

Dylan and his band were joined by keyboardist Augie Meyers, who reported that the sessions were workmanlike, thoroughly enjoyable, with Dylan penning extra verses between takes as needed.

The result, "Love And Theft", Dylan's 39th studio album, positively hums with brilliance.

Though it sounds little like the Grammy-winning "Time Out Of Mind", the new album fits right in with Bob's musical journey through the past decade or so.

In 1991 he released a collection of old folk and blues songs on "Good As I Been To You". A year later the more focused collection, "World Gone Wrong", popped out.

Dylan was delving deep back into his musical roots, shaking the dust off his battered copy of the "Anthology of American Folk Music" and clearing the dust from his own head. "Time Out Of Mind" came along in 1997, loaded with musical and lyrical references to myriad blues, folk and country songs. Old timey and bang up to date, the album was a huge success.

Four years on comes the next instalment and it is every bit as good.

A condensed, densely packed, pocket-sized version of Bob Dylan's America, "Love And Theft" sounds like nothing else you'll hear all year

From barroom blues to gentle swing, the 12 songs here cover a huge geographical territory: from the Deep South to Appalachia, from Florida to the Iron Range. The America that emerges is a feral country, barely a step away from the wild.

Full of hope, large skies and boundless possibility, this America is also ruthless, brutal and casually cruel. Dylan sings of honeybees buzzing and flowers blooming in the gently swaying Floater. A few verses later he's warning that he's not to be messed with.

Dylan narrates his way around this landscape, observing odd characters and weird locations, from the troublesome Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, who initially sound like a pair of loose-limbed eejits but who by song's end you'd not want to meet even on a well lit street, to the Po' Boy who can't put a foot right.

Romeo and Juliet drift by, as do Othello and Desdemona, immigrants to this restless nation; Darwin crops up, stranded out on Highway 5, his future looking dodo-bright; and seemingly plain folks all would fillet and skillet the unwary in a trice. Dylan shrugs his shoulders, makes a note in his book, and remarks about the changing weather and changing locations.

It is a rich confection indeed.

But all this musical arcana would mean little if the thing didn't sound so damned good.

Dylan and his band are in perfect synch, honed into a versatile and duck's arse tight unit by the endless touring.

Whether cutting loose on "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" or on "Honest With Me" (which crackles and zips like an updated "Highway 61") or taking it gentle on "Po' Boy" and "High Water" Dylan and his band are a perfect musical unit. Effortlessly, they take on and a variety of styles and sounds, cutting a swathe across musical America. If it all goes pear shaped they'd make a hell of a decent living on the wedding and 21st circuit.

Jorge Luis Borges said that with the best poetry there is a thrill, an almost physical emotion, which comes with each reading. The lyrics, Dylan's singing, and phrasing, and that razor sharp sound, together make "Love And Theft" a truly thrilling thing. Poetry it may not be; a stirring, striking, and hugely enjoyable collection it certainly is.

Dylan effortlessly recovers the past with these songs. I imagine that this is the musical landscape that the teenage Dylan dreamt up living through those long cold Iron Range winters, his radio tuned to stations from Memphis and New Orleans broadcasting weird and wonderful tunes.

Dylan told USA Today "I think of it more as a greatest-hits album, volume one or volume two. Without the hits - not yet, anyway." And you know, he wasn't far wrong.

"Love And Theft" is a gem.

All right, I have something I need to get off my chest. First, though, the review. This is incredible. While not quite in the class of Blood on the Tracks and the electric trilogy of 65-66, its still a dern fine piece of work, right next to Freewheelin', John Wesley Harding, and Time Out of Mind, masterpieces all. Tweedle Dee is a great opener, bluesy, a little bluegrass, awesome, straight through the finale Sugar Baby, which is a song that can take it's rightful place in Dylan's canon next to the other greats. Po' Boy is a wonderful song along with the fun Summer Days, the blues rocker Lonesome Day Blues, and especially Highwater, the second best song on the album, behind the instant classic, Mississippi. This brings me to what really cheeses me. How, how I ask, can people criticize his voice? A conventional voice singing Mississippi would have made it just a good song. Dylan's voice does something to it that is unimaginable if you've heard the Sheryl Crow version. His voice is an additional instrument that no one else knows how to play. Dylan's is truly beautiful singing. This voice is a world-weary, but I've survived dangnabbit voice and is truly a revelation. Feel free to follow Ricky Martin and his crew of phonies who are destroying American music, if that's your thing; eventually you'll find that road leads nowhere and long after they're gone, Dylan will remain.

My favorite Dylan period was from Bringing It All Back Home to Blonde on Blonde. I remember the first time I checked into the possibility of listening to Bob's newer music. I clicked on a link at Amazon, and my first impression was that his voice was unbearable. Recently, after seeing the great reviews for this cd, I decided to take a chance and order it anyway. Am I ever glad I did. I really love the music. It's got what I would call a sort of '50s rock sound....but you can never really describe Bob Dylan's music, can you? I was also suprised to find that Dylan's new lower vocal range quickly grew on me - as soon as I put aside the expectation of hearing the Bob Dylan from the '60s. Being open minded is very important when it comes to music, and I'm glad I chose to give this one a chance.

Love and Theft is easily Bob Dylan's best CD in a long time. I think a line from the song Mississippi sums this album up fairly well: "Things are starting to get interesting right about now." After almost forty years in the business, Dylan is still putting out some of the best music he has ever written and recorded. It lacks the passion and underlying spirit of rebellion found in his early releases, but Love and Theft stands well above the vast majority of music being recorded these days. In Summer Days, Dylan says that you can repeat the past, and in a way, that is what he has done here. This Bob Dylan is a conglomeration of all the Bob Dylans that have come and gone for; drawing on varied aspects of his musical legacy, he manages to return to the basics while at the same time offering a fresh variety of sounds and musical approaches on these twelve tracks.

Mississippi would be my favorite song here; the manner of Dylan's extended delivery of incredible lyrics brings to mind classic songs such as Tangled Up in Blue. If you like energetic, toe-tapping rockers, Dylan proves he won't be performing sitting down for many a year with Lonesome Day Blues and Cry a While, two songs also heavily tinged with the blues, as well as Honest With Me. Summer Days is quite unusual, combining verifiable swing music with a strong pinch of rockabilly. On High Water (for Charlie Patton), Dylan incorporates the banjo and also possibly the mandolin, while Floater (Too Much to Ask) seems to feature violin music that works especially well in the transitions. I normally would not think of violins and Bob Dylan together, but the combination works fabulously. Floater is also notable for its plucky rhythm and subtly humorous lyrics. This album also features some slow, even poignant songs which I find it hard to describe. I could actually imagine the songs Bye and Bye and Moonlight being sung by a Sammy Davis Jr. to the accompaniment of the incomparable Laurindo Almeida. Po' Boy is another slow song, but it has a little stronger guitar playing pushing it along. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum gets this album off to a great start, and Sugar Baby, a reflective song about looking backwards at the past closes it out on a magical note.

Dylan's voice isn't what it used to be, but I find the distinguished, gravel-like nature of it quite enjoyable, especially on tracks featuring a good beat and forceful lyrics. It can sound a little strained at times, but what we get in Love and Theft is the real Bob Dylan. He seems to recognize his place in history, appreciating the great days of the past but charging ahead proudly into the future. The music is what matters to him, and he presents it honestly and openly; the sense of comfort he seems to possess at this stage in his legendary career allows the words and music to emerge naturally, and I believe that is the secret of his unparalleled success.

Dylan strikes again! You all are probably very curious what Bob Dylan has been up too since we last heard from him in 1997 with the Grammy winning TIME OUT OF MIND, and I was fortunate enough to pick up a copy on September 7th, with the bonus disc of two tracks. Don't worry, you all are in for a treat. The bonus disc has a traditional folk song entitled "I was Young When I Left Home," and has a running length of 5:24, and the other is an alternate version of "The Times They Are A' Changin'," and 2:57. Both are remarkable. But what about LOVE AND THEFT? Well, I'll tell you.

Dylan's miracle working knows no stopping, and with this release, he single-handedly creates an homage to the blues and yet captures all the tensions therein this particular genre. It's truly a greatest hits album, but not of Dylan, but rather the blues. That is the central paradox of this album. He has created a blues album which is simultaneously being torn in two directions, which epitomises the genre itself in the 1930s to the 1950s.

LOVE AND THEFT certainly marks its roots in the blues. Just a little over half the album plays like the successor that this record is to the 1997's smash TIME OUT OF MIND in the sense that it feels really bluesy but without the death obsession that its predecessor had. The other half, (these five tracks: Summer Day, Bye and Bye, Floater, Moonlight, and Po' Boy) sound like they call come from the same synapses of Dylan's brain, as their sound blur into one another. The best way to describe it is it sounds like old, simple bluesy folk compositions with a real 1930s to 1940s feel too it. Summer Day's intro reminds me of old 1950s rock, but then transform back into the similar feel of the aforementioned tracks. On first listening thru these songs, I found myself wanting to skip them, but on second listen I became more impressed with the compositions. It's as if Dylan wanted to make old scratchy records without the scratches from the Depression Era, and generally he is successful. Although I never thought I would make this analogy, the track "Moonlight" reminds me of old Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra.

Because this is the release immediately after TIME OUT OF MIND, an album that won Dylan critical praise and renewed interest, I feel I need to clarify LOVE AND THEFT's relationship to TIME OUT OF MIND. TIME OUT OF MIND, which plays like a concept album about death and being in love with a woman he wishes he wasn't, feels like BLOOD ON THE TRACKS aged twenty or so years, and an utter weariness permeates the proceedings. (Taken in this context, "To Make You Feel My Love" stands as one of the most depressing and pained things Dylan ever wrote).

And just like BLOOD ON THE TRACKS and DESIRE, TIME OUT OF MIND and LOVE AND THEFT are two completely different albums. BLOOD and TOOM are very personal albums. DESIRE has a weird world beat, and LOVE AND THEFT, although much closer to TOOM in its musical foundation (for both share blues as their central structure), loses the intimacy of TOOM, which creates yet another paradox, because TOOM has all the intimate factors that make Blues feel so personal to us, and yet LOVE AND THEFT loses that feeling of raw intimacy and yet it better captures the blues genre that TOOM does. TOOM is personal application of Blues principles, where LOVE AND THEFT is more of a textbook study of the tensions of the blues genre.

LOVE AND THEFT keeps the same blues base, but ultimately TIME OUT OF MIND is ultimately the bluesier in the modern context of the two records because there is more of a cohesian of the pain and more commonly perceived blues elements. Each song adds the pain felt in the previous song, making it like a snowball effect and culminating in the 16 minute closer "Highlands". Ironically, though, this record captures more of the blues tradition and the genre's myriad influences, although time may have obscured this. This tension between those old scratchy folk sounding songs and the more commonly perceived bluesy material creates a tension that is not felt on TIME OUT OF MIND at all. Side 1 (the first six songs), opens with two blues, then two of the other, then another one that's like TOOM, and then ends with "Floater". Side 2 is a similar story. Dylan's sequencing proves absolutely essential on this release, for without it the tension would simply be lost. A very notable composition is "Highwater (for Charlie Patton)*," which sounds like a close relative of "Ballad of Hollis Brown," and straddles the fence quite appropriately between the blues and folk but with more emphasis on folk. Because folk's influence on blues is never made more explicit in the context of this record than on here, "Highwater" stands as a very important link to the song cycle that is LOVE AND THEFT.

Dylan said of LOVE AND THEFT that the songs don't really have any genetic history, and that they're probably not like his previous works. Dylan said he thought of it more like a greatest hits album, either Volume I or II. There weren't any hits on this record -- at least, not YET.

Again, Dylan proves the most perceptive of his work. Although LOVE AND THEFT's closest relation in Dylan's catalogue is TIME OUT OF MIND, it stands as a greatest hits record of blues' history and the struggle with in the genre to find its own sound, and yet these are all new songs created by Dylan in the new millennium. That is the central paradox of LOVE AND THEFT, and what makes it so incredibly interesting.

*If you have any information on him please email me.

The best collection of songs I've heard in at least twenty years. It's about time that people realized that Bob Dylan is the best songwriter of the last fifty years (that list includes Lennon/McCartney). And how many lyrics make you laugh out loud? When I first heard Juliet tell Romeo (in Floater)..."Why don't you just shove off if it bothers you so much..." I'm rolling on the floor. Dylan has the lyrical dexterity of Cole Porter at his best (In fact, when "Bye and Bye" started the first thing I thought was, "Isn't this Cole Porter?"). His timing puts the best hip-hopper to shame. This collection of songs ranges from funny to sad, poignant to mad, and even a great love song that my wife and I enjoy dancing to in the living room (Moonlight). Throw in one of the great, steam-locomotive rockers of all time (Lonesome Day Blues) and also "Mississippi" (which still gives me chicken skin on the breaks). I've listened to this damned CD about a hundred times and I still can't force myself to put on something else! People have always enjoyed disparaging Dylan's voice. Well, now he sounds like the finest oak-barrel bourbon from the deepest southern woods... like Louis Armstrong at his best. Ain't no music teacher would like it, but the character of that voice goes to the heart. If Faulkner became music, this is how he'd sound. Quit readin' and buy it!

When I first heard this new Bob Dylan album, I felt certain that my brief and torrid love affair with everything Dylan was over: I didn't like the album. I thought the first two tracks were decent, but 'Summer Days' had that all-too-connected-with-reality feel of a song like 'Clean Cut Kid'. Then came 'Bye and Bye' (which still seems like the less handsome and athletic brother of 'Floater') and 'Lonesome Day Blues'. I turned the radio off.

Well I gotta tell you that for a few years now, I have listened to the full content of no other albums except those by Bob Dylan. Like all of his albums, and echoing the sentiments of many reviewers before me: you gotta listen to this thing a few times before it gets into you. And if you don't hear it, you'll never believe what the man has put together.

Bob Dylan is a wordsmith, an absolutely unparalleled genius in his use of phrasing, emphasis, and general use of the English language. On "Love and Theft", he's skating, sliding, dragging, butchering, tripping over, etc. words in vintage fashion. He's back to naming characters (Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Fat Nancy, Aunt Sally, Samantha Brown) that he makes us feel like we should know. In this respect, "Love and Theft" feels a little like "Highway 61 Revisited". But you really can't compare this work to anything that Bob Dylan has done in the past; it just wouldn't do him justice. Bob Dylan has reinvented himself again and I feel that he has been no better at any point in his career than he is now.

"Love and Theft" is a gift to everyone who truly reveres Bob Dylan. Dylan doesn't give listeners any overtly catchy tunes in the hopes of recruiting new fans. It's just cool old Bob with his take it or leave it attitude that we love. He knows he's got the stuff. Catchy tunes or not though, the songs are absolutely breathtaking.

Granted, it's been four years since his last release, but Bob Dylan has something to say. The songs are just rife with words, sometimes so beautifully crowded that Dylan has to do some nifty organizing ("Romeo said to Juliet...a very youthful touch"). There's no doubt that he's blown out his voice, but it sounds more convincing and better than ever. He muddles a lot of passages on this album and you really have to perk your ears to make them out.

I could go on about this album...I haven't even gotten to the songs. It would be ridiculous to describe them. At this point in my listening career, this is the best Bob Dylan album I have ever heard. Bottom line is that an artist like Bob Dylan comes along once in God knows how many years. There are not enough accolades that we can bestow upon him. I urge you to listen not only to "Love and Theft", but to all of Dylan's albums. He has brought so much substance to all our lives that it is time we give back to Bob Dylan. Spread his name and music. Bestow upon him his rightful accolades, for he truly is the only artist who still matters. Ensure that your generation knows who is its most celebrated artist.

Bob Dylan's 43rd album starts out as just another good Dylan album, then kicks the door wide open into new territory. Here's how it plays out:
The album opens with "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum," a typical straight-ahead opener about two interesting characters. From the very first track, you hear the first of many great Charlie Sexton guitar licks...and the rest of the band is up to the task as well. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
"Mississippi" was originally intended for 'Time Out of Mind,' but Dylan and producer Daniel Lanois had a dispute about how the tune should be recorded, so Bob waited until now to put it on an album. It's being called an "instant classic," and rightfully so. The song reveals another shade of Dylan, giving us another clue as to what it's like to be Bob Dylan. Near the end of the song, Dylan sings, "Things should start to get interesting right about now." They sure do. "Summer Days" explodes as a swing/rockabilly/Elvis-like tune that does not disappoint in the least. From "Summer Days" on, you feel like you're listening to something very different from 'Time Out of Mind.' But Bob has more surprises..."Bye and Bye" comes across like an old Sinatra lounge-lizard tune, but it's a great departure and it works. The entire album has been called by some critics a tribute to American music. The album contains nods to the blues, country, folk, softshoe, rhythm & blues, and of course rock n roll. A word or two about Dylan's band: This is the best performance by any of Dylan's bands since 'Blonde on Blonde' over 30 years ago. The group is top-notch and masterfully moves from one style to another. And what about Bob's voice? He's in his 60's now, after all...he's never sounded better. The amazing thing is that through all the very different styles on this album, Bob's voice works on every single track. I suspect that Dylan will keep us guessing about what he's up to next all the way until he takes his last breath, which I hope won't be for a long, long time. Bob has constantly re-invented himself throughout his 40-year career, but for the past few years he has delivered two of his strongest albums. I think this one is stronger and better than 'Time Out of Mind.' A lot of people think Bob's best stuff is going on right now. They may be right. Explanation? "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

In the final sentence of his great 918-page epic `Song & Dance Man 3: the Art of Bob Dylan' [2000], Michael Gray wrote of his earnest hope that Dylan `in the wintertime' of his work would call `a halt to his reluctance' and go on to produce yet more `extraordinary new songs that really speak to any audience, performed with grace and wit and ardour'.
Worry no more Michael - here they are!
This is a wonderful album, fit for the highest levels in the Dylan canon. Here again is all the matchless songcraft, the wit, the unmistakable love for the great old American music that has marked all Dylan's great work. And all presented via some of his greatest-ever vocalising.
Debate will doubtless rage about which of the 12 songs are `classics' and which `throwaways'. I think this is a feature of the album that makes it especially Dylanesque; what at first may sound like lesser-lights, on further listening reveal layers that make the songs much more. `Floater [Too Much To Ask]' is one such, with its wonderful evocative quality that has Huck and Jim at the tiller in my mind's eye. `Po' Boy' is another.
But instant masterpieces there certainly are: listen to the way he sings `I crossed that riverrrrr...' on 'Mississippi', surely one of Dylan's greatest-ever vocals, to say nothing of the tremendous rhythm section. And when has he ever produced a more atmospheric track than `Highwater [for Charley Patton]' in which he manages to pay tribute to perhaps the greatest of all Delta bluesmen, not only by including his name in the title but by reference to several Patton classics [Highwater Everywhere Parts 1 & 2, Shake It and Break It, High Sherrif Blues, for example] in the lyrics. Yet the song itself is nothing like anything Charley ever did. Rarely has there ever been so varied a Dylan album. Fans and scholars will yet again have a great time speculating on what Bob is doing here. `Concept album' is a phrase that will ring for sometime when this disc is discussed. None of us is a Michael Gray but that need not stop us throwing ideas around; here's one:
In his liner notes for the album 'The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers:a tribute' 1997 CK 67676, Bob wrote:
"Jimmie Rodgers of course is one of the guiding lights of the 20th century whose way with song has always been an inspiration to those of us who followed the path. A blazing star whose sound was and remains the raw essence of individuality...his voice gives hope to the vanquished and humility to the mighty [NB 'I'm going to teach peace to the conquered/I'm going to tame the proud' - Lonesome Day Blues, from Love & Theft]. He sings not only his bawdy, upbeat blues and railroading songs, but also tin pan alley trash and crooner lullabies as well. He is the Ringmaster General and is, as in the Warren Smith ballad, the man who 'held your hand and sang you a song'. What more could he do...Times change and don't change. The nature of humanity has stayed the same. Jimmie is at the heart of it all with a seriousness and humour which is bedfuddling."
A thought that sparked a concept?

I took time out last night to listen to some of my favorite Bob Dylan albums, and the conclusion I came to last night was that Dylan is one of rock's great vocalists. He doesn't have a beautiful voice nor the range of other singers, but he's quite adept at phrasing a lyric. More than anything--the touring band, the musical arrangements, the bouncy lyrics--Dylan's newest effort, "Love and Theft," is a showcase for Dylan's voice.

"Mississippi," an exiled track from "Time Out of Mind," becomes a world-weary testament when sang by Dylan. Sheryl Crow cut a version of "Mississippi" in "The Globe Sessions," but it came off as a rushed, amiable rocker rather than the wise, soulful song that it is. Even in the pop arrangements for "Moonlight" and "Bye and Bye," Dylan's voice is a marvel of innuendo and desire. Perhaps the best song in the album is the closer, "Sugar Baby." When Dylan sings, "You went years without me/ You might as well keep going on," it resonates with heartbreak and resignation.

Dylan, now in his sixties, may have realized that he is no longer the agile man who could growl "How does it feel?" and intimidate the bejeezus out of you. He is now a man, late in life, who can moan and grumble about life and all its hardships yet still sound grateful. In many ways, Dylan was so much older then, and he's younger than that now.

Is "Love and Theft" one of Dylan's best albums? I'm not quite sure. I place it above "Time Out of Mind" but it doesn't match "Blood on the Tracks." In any case, I think it's Dylan's most delightful album. Dylan and fun, who would have thunk it?